5 random things that happened on this day, October 18th, in history
1867 The USA take possession of Alaska (formerly owned by Russia). Happy Alaska Day if we have any readers there. Enjoy your holiday.
1961 West Side Story has its world premiere in New York City. It will go on to become a blockbuster at the box office and win 10 Oscars including Best Picture. We recently did a deep dive right here that you should read if you missed. It's currently being remade (sigh) by Steven Spielberg.
← 1966 Persona premieres in Sweden. Ingmar Bergman's masterpiece (well, one of them) will hit US theaters in March the following year. Strangely, given its reputation now and Bergman's position in world cinema then, it was not one of his Oscar successes...
The only group that went crazy for it was the National Society of Film Critics which gave it Film, Actress, and Director prizes. Oscar Trivia Time: Bergman was submitted by Sweden for the Oscar an incredible 8 times, 3 of resulted in nominations and all of those won (The Virgin Spring, Through a Glass Darkly, and Fanny and Alexander). In addition to the foreign film play he received 9 Oscar nominations and an Irving Thalberg award making him the second most Oscar-lauded foreign film director of all time (just behind Itally's Federico Fellini).
1988 Roseanne premieres on ABC. It will become one of the most successful sitcoms of all time, progressive in its politics, and influential in its realism, regularly topping the Nielsen's and running for nine years. Roseanne herself eventually goes crazy but that's another story.
2000 Actors Demi Moore and Bruce Willis divorce after 13 years of a very high profile superstar marriage.
Today's Birthdays
Herzog & Kinski. Friends/Enemies/Mutual-MusesOscar Winners: Actor George C Scott (Patton), Screenwriter Graham Moore (The Imitation Game), Screenwriter Waldo Salt (Coming Home, Midnight Cowboy), Composer Howard Shore (Lord of the Rings)
Oscar Nominees: Actors Miriam Hopkins, Lotte Lenya, and Melina Mercouri and Cinematographer John Schwartzman
Actors: Peter Boyle, Joy Bryant, Pam Dawber, Zac Efron, Marco Hofschneider, Arliss Howard, Klaus Kinski (pictured left), Calvin Lockhart, Erin Moran, Joe Morton, Freida Pinto, Tyler Posey, Om Puri, Toby Regbo, Emily Robinson, Esperanza Spalding, Vincent Spano, Jean Claude Van Damme, Dawn Wells, Zhou Xun, and Victor Sen Yung
Other Showbiz Peeps: Musician Chuck Berry, Writer/Director Stéphane Brizé, Producer Chuck Lorre, Athlete Martina Navratilova, Writer Nic Pizzolatto, and Playwright Wendy Wasserstein.
Today's Birthday Suit Elmer Bäck. Did any of you see that insane Peter Greenaway film Eisenstein in Guanajuato (2015) in which the Russian director Sergei Enseinstein (Bäck) travels to Mexico where he shacks up with Palomino Cañeda (Luis Alberti)?
Since it's a Greenaway film there was copious male nudity. Supposedly the Finnish actor and iconoclast British director are reteaming for a sequel Eisenstein in Hollywood. Greenaway is so insane and I feel cinephiles under, say, 35, missed his entire provocative career as his career was waning just as movie discussions were migrating to the internet in the mid 90s but the internet wasn't yet super image friendly and his career was nothing if not visual, cutting the discussion off even more quickly. His most famous film remains The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover (1989/1990).